South Carolina GOP ‘Sister Senators’ Warn of Long-Term Damages of Fight Against Abortion

As Republicans across the country head to Milwaukee for next week’s Republican National Convention, abortion will not be at the forefront of the GOP’s week-long nomination of former President Donald Trump.

In a new platform released by the party ahead of the convention, Republican leaders agreed that “the power [on abortion] it was turned over to the States and the vote of the People,” leaving the question of gestational limits to the individual states.

In states like South Carolina, that could mean a near-total ban on abortion, as three Republican women who opposed the six-week ban last year were eliminated in this summer’s Republican primaries.

The three women — state senators Sandy Senn, Penry Gustafson and Katrina Shealy — joined two Democratic women to create a coalition dubbed “sister senators.”

The five, who happened to be the only women in the state Senate, obstructed block a version of the anti-abortion lawwinning national awards and recognition.

But the measure and subsequent votes against the abortion ban which became lawcost Republican women their political careers.

“We’re not stupid,” Senn told NBC News in a phone interview last month. “We certainly knew that as Republican women there could easily be [political] to fall.”

Senn, Shealy and Gustafson lost their chances for re-election in primary challenges from Republican men.

That means there likely won’t be any Republican women in the House when the next term begins, something Senn and Gustafson described as devastating.

“There’s a bigger picture here,” Gustafson said in a separate phone interview last month. “What this means is that Katrina Shealy is the only female committee chair – it took her years to get to this point.”

Gustafson added: “With Republicans as the absolute majority, Republicans will be the committee chairs. Therefore, there are no Republican women. This means no committee chairs for years. Someone has to be elected, then they have to serve, and they have to prove their worth and be chosen. … In my opinion, we will not be able to have another female committee president for at least 15 years. Minimum.”

Former Lancaster County Councilman Allen Blackmon, state Rep. Matt Leber and Carlisle Kennedy, the three men who defeated the GOP’s “sister senators,” all describe themselves as anti-abortion. It’s unclear how they would have voted on the bill, but critics fear they might support a more extreme abortion ban if introduced in the state Senate.

Kennedy got to the point where tell the Lexington County Chronicle that he had “a difference of opinion” with Shealy over her vote against the abortion law.

Redistricting, which was completed in 2021 and made Gustafson and Senn’s districts more conservative, may also have played a role in the primary results, they said.

“At the time of the vote, I was certain that my district was the most at risk of being lost in this vote,” Gustafson said, adding, “I knew that because I have a very, very conservative district, and with redistricting, it made yourself even more.”

Senn added that his district was redrawn to incorporate a much more rural and conservative part of the state, where “these people would think, I would say, differently than those who live in, say, Dorchester or Summerville or Charleston, which is where I’m from.” “, she said.

There will likely be just two women in the State Senate when the next session begins in 2025, State Senator Margie Bright Matthews, one of the Democrats who joined the “sister senators” filibuster, and State Senator Tameika Isaac Devine, a Democrat who won a special election and was sworn in earlier this year.

“It’s not about gender politics,” Gustafson said, adding that “Republicans like to say, ‘Oh, that’s just gender politics.’ No, it’s not. More than half of our population is women in South Carolina, more than half.”

Senn added that she doesn’t think the state’s current abortion law or any future bans would prevent women from seeking reproductive care, especially since abortion-inducing pills like mifepristone are widely available online, sometimes on non-medical websites and sometimes sent from abroad.

A study conducted earlier this year found that women, both pregnant and non-pregnant, are ordering abortion pills online more frequently, including in services that allow telehealth consultations in states where abortion is not as restricted.

“Women will do what women will do, regardless of any law,” Senn said.

A study by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion think tank, found that abortion rates are relatively equal across nations where abortion is legal and where it is restricted.

Both Gustafson and Senn said that despite their primary defeats, they do not regret their decision to oppose South Carolina’s abortion ban, even though it was later passed.

Senators from both sides of the aisle gathered last month to watch the Shealy primary election results. only 37.5% of the vote.

“I didn’t really cry until the night of the Katrina primary, and we all cried,” Gustafson said. “I was more moved to see my senator sisters arrive at the scene one by one.”

“But being there together felt like coming full circle. It was, it was, it felt right. And we have a genuine bond that I never imagined a year ago that we would have,” she added.

The women plan to stay together even as some of them are leaving the chamber, Senn and Gustafson told NBC News.

Gustafson noted that he spoke with Senn and Shealy about tentative plans to start a consulting project to help future Republican women who want to run for office in the Palmetto State.

“But right now, this is just an idea,” Gustafson added.

This article was originally published in NBCNews. with